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Evans: No need for nannyism on post-flood trails

By Clay Evans

Posted:
10/13/2013 01:00:00 AM MDT

Within every hysterical overreaction lie the seeds of rebellion.

Let's say you've been hammering "just say no to drugs" into your blossoming teenager. Your message is stark and unforgiving: Take drugs. And. You. Will. Die. Or at least wind up a prostitute or in prison or a drooling idiot on a street corner.

But your scare job didn't quite work, and the kid decides to test the proposition. Drinks a beer. Gets stoned. After the fog clears, he sees he's not living in a Dumpster and turning tricks on Colfax for the next fix. In fact, it was kind of fun. Thus overstated, your otherwise true and valid message -- drugs, including alcohol, can destroy lives -- is now worthless. You are discredited.

But this column is about access to City of Boulder trails following the devastating September flooding. The Open Space and Mountain Parks Department has wildly overreacted, maintaining blanket closures a month after the rain stopped. And people are beginning to ignore them.

As of Wednesday, 43 percent of trails have been reopened, including 31 miles of mountain trails. All open space remains closed after dark and there is no off-trail access. OSMP honcho Mike Patton told the Open Space Board of Trustees on Sept. 25 that "most" trails would be open and the nighttime ban would be rescinded in two weeks. But this week, the department said it hopes to have 50 percent of trails open by Jan. 1.

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Closing open space made perfect sense in the immediate wake of the disaster. But now, as countless people blow past the orange hurricane fencing and yellow police tape -- many just want to see for themselves -- they are becoming cynical. In many closed areas there is little or no damage. In others there is more damage, but it's clear that additional human impacts would make things only incrementally worse, and the trails have to be rebuilt anyway. In other areas, there is such extensive damage -- trails completely washed off mountainsides -- that reasonable people understand the need for long-term closure.

The department offers two reasons for its ongoing closures: concern about additional impacts on flood-damaged trails and safety.

But if these trails are as thrashed and gully-washed as they are telling us, even thousands of booted feet aren't going to make much more difference.

Safety? First, forget the common misperception that city is just protecting itself from being sued. The department is covered under governmental immunity from prosecution (a very good policy; otherwise, governments would be paralyzed by lawsuits -- maybe let's not tell the Tea Party about this, huh?).

Second, if you've made a "winter ascent" of Fern Canyon, or heck, just walked the Mesa Trail, in January, you know it's dangerous. I have a friend who slipped on ice and broke his collarbone just a few yards onto the Mesa Trail. The city doesn't feel the need to "protect" us from such conditions, so why the hand wringing now?

Ditto for nighttime access. Most people who would head into the hills at night are pretty savvy to start with; they can take care of themselves. (The political subtext here is that some in the department have pressed to permanently close all or most open-space lands to nighttime access. Take that for what it's worth.)

Other agencies have chosen to trust visitors. Rocky Mountain National Park reopened trails soon after the flooding and visitors to the website were greeted with this sensible message: "Backcountry travelers will encounter different conditions than they have experienced in the past ... Expect missing foot bridges, uneven trail surfaces, unstable slopes, falling trees due to soil moisture, rutted trails, damaged water bars and steps, standing water, difficult water crossings, and missing directional signs. Be prepared; hike at your own risk."

Be smart, in other words. Be responsible. Have fun!

Some also feel the city has been dragging its feet on making use of thousands of volunteers eager to repair trails. As of Wednesday, the city had worked with 200 volunteers on 12 projects, with seven more already planned, according to Division Manager Jim Reeder.

But the issue is more complex than it may seem. "The bottleneck at this time is not volunteers it's designing projects," Reeder says. "We have very talented, capable and energetic trail design professionals. It just takes time to do trail design right."

And, I'm told, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will pay up to 75 percent for trail rehab projects, but only if it approves projects, which takes time.

Despite machine-like politics at the highest levels in the department, I know most dedicated rank-and-file OSMP workers want to get as much open space open as soon as possible. Some I've spoken to seem almost embarrassed that the higher-ups are so keen to fend off the very people who pay for the land -- and their salaries.

The department should stop trying to "protect" us, err on the side of opening trails and trust people to look after themselves. If it doesn't, expect more and more people to ignore the unnecessary closures -- even where closure is truly warranted.

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